The Planescape: Torment developers at Obsidian Entertainment will be …

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As if fans of old-school PC RPGs didn't have enough reason to be excited about the successfully Kickstarted sequel to Wasteland, there's now word that Planescape: Torment studio Obsidian Entertainment will join in on the development of the game if the project reaches a new goal of $2.1 million in funding.

According to a statement released by developer inXile, Wasteland mastermind Brian Fargo reached out to Obsidian Chief Creative Officer Chris Avellone, who says he "jumped at the chance" to work on what he considers a spiritual successor to the Fallout series. Fargo previously worked with members of the Obsidian team at Interplay's Black Isle Studios, on titles like Icewind Dale and the first two Fallout games.

Besides reuniting these talented developers, Fargo said adding Obsidian to the project would bring "an incredible library of story, dialog and design tools that they have used to create hits like Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, and of course, Fallout: New Vegas. Regardless of the tech we use to develop the game, experience with these tools will help us efficiently design the game without wasting time and resources on the tools needed for development."

The Kickstarter fundraising effort for Wasteland 2 flew past its initial $900,000 funding goal just two days after its launch earlier this month, and has since passed the $1.5 million that was deemed necessary to add a Mac/Linux version on top of the PC edition. Backers now have 17 days to raise the nearly $450,000 necessary to reach the new, Obsidian-attracting level of $2.1 million. That's money the studio could surely use, after reportedly letting go of 20 to 30 employees earlier this month.

InXile is now also taking PayPal pledges directly through its website, and is still offering funding rewards ranging from a downloadable soundtrack to an autographed collector's edition of the boxed game. Five percent of all profits from the funding will be reinvested in other projects through the Kicking It Forward initiative.

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Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

Five percent of all donations will be reinvested in other projects through the Kicking It Forward initiative

This is incorrect. Kicking it Forward does not touch the donations. It is a promise that 5 percent of profits from the completed project will be donated back to a different project on Kickstarter. From the Kicking It Forward link in the article:

Quote:

To be abundantly clear, this is only money that the developer earns as profit AFTER the project ships and AFTER they have paid their expenses. This is NOT a suggestion to invest money they received from people who invested into their project via Kickstarter.

Five percent of all donations will be reinvested in other projects through the Kicking It Forward initiative.

This is not at all correct--5% of the profits will be reinvested, including money brought in after the game is developed and goes on sale to non-backers. The project should use all of the backer funds towards development of the game, so in practice, none of the donations will be reinvested. People misunderstood this when Brian Fargo first announced Kicking it Forward because few people want their donations to be spent willy-nilly on other projects, but he has clarified that this is not how it works at all. From the Kicking it Forward website:

Quote:

Any developer that puts the "Kicking it Forward" badge on their Kickstarter project page is agreeing that they will put 5% of their finished product profits back into other Kickstarter projects. To be abundantly clear, this is only money that the developer earns as profit AFTER the project ships and AFTER they have paid their expenses. This is NOT a suggestion to invest money they received from people who invested into their project via Kickstarter.

EDIT:

Wow--double beaten. It was a severe oversight thought, and needs to be corrected in the article.

No first person shooter, we’re going top down so you get a tactical feel for the situation. And we’re not ditching the party play to turn it into some hack-and-slash bloodfest. It’s turn based, tactical, with a storyline that will be deeper and broader.

To using the design tools that built NWN2, KOTOR2 and Fallout:NV, all of which were first person, real-time games? Also Obsidian games are always buggy messes on release. They announced Wasteland as a call back to old school RPGs, even saying it might bring back a whole genre of games like that. Now it sounds like it will be latest in the recent line of FPS-like RPGs and just drop in the Wasteland world. Not really what people signed up for, but I guess wait and see.

I'd rather Mr Avellone work on a Planescape:Torment 2 game. Not a sequel, a brand new game. Given Obsidian's experience is now in 3D game development as subcontractors, I don't see much that they could contribute to Wasteland 2, previous 30-year-old team connections notwithstanding.

Never forget that they were only given 1 year to do the game, and then it shipped 3 months early. LucasArts went bankrupt, cancelled the KOTOR3 project in pre-production, fired the staff and shipped KOTOR2 early. Then LucasArts was resurrected as a division of ILM. None of that was Obsidian's fault.

Obsidain has some great developers working for them with amazing resumes. And many of them worked on Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and the cancelled Van Buren version of Fallout 3 that never happened.

Obsidian might have bad luck with game release schedules but having them on board for the story parts would be a big win.

Chris Avellone and Tim Cain have given us some of the best work in western RPGs: Fallout 1-2 and New Vegas, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale I-II, KOTOR II, Neverwinter 2 and MOTB . . .

> To using the design tools that built NWN2, KOTOR2 and Fallout:NV, all of which were first person, real-time games?

Many tools don't depend on the combat model, and NWN was turn-based "under the hood" just presented as pausible real-time. Quest scripts, other world state, influence systems, ...

I would not count KOTOR 2, NWN2 and Fallout NV as some of western RPG's best work. I would list them as average to poor. Though that is my personal opinion. Every IP that I have enjoyed has been tarnished each time Obsidian has touched it. Throw Dungeon Siege 3 in there as well.

Five percent of all donations will be reinvested in other projects through the Kicking It Forward initiative.

This is inaccurate. In reality 5% of all donations go to Kickstarter, and 3-5% goes to Amazon for payment processing (see Kickstarter's TOS) and nothing from the donation pool is going to Kick it Forward. The idea is when the game enters retail space 5% of the profits from those sales go toward Kick it Forward. The actual donation money is not used in Kick it Forward, as explained in the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter FAQ.

I would withdraw my Kickstarter pledge if this gets closer to happening. I don't have many fond memories of KOTORII, Dungeon Siege 3 or Fallout NV (never played NWN2). I would rather Obsidian NOT be a part of the development process for what I hope will be a good game in Wasteland 2.

I would withdraw my Kickstarter pledge if this gets closer to happening. I don't have many fond memories of KOTORII, Dungeon Siege 3 or Fallout NV (never played NWN2). I would rather Obsidian NOT be a part of the development process for what I hope will be a good game in Wasteland 2.

KOTOR2 is unfinished, but wasn't their fault.

I haven't played DS3, but the first DS game was terrible and the genre just doesn't appeal to me.

Fallout: NV when patched was amazing. It was very buggy at launch, but every Bethesda game produced with that engine is super buggy at launch.

And apparently remain ignorant. Obsidian is not at fault for the state of KOTOR2. Lucas Arts forced the shipping date. Obsidian had less than 12 months to create that game because Lucas Arts wanted to capitalize on the success of KOTOR by releasing a sequel in time for Christmas the very next year.

Obsidian was also damaged with New Vegas because Bethesda pushed up the shipping date and forced the game to be released in a buggy state.

Obsidian is quite capable of producing a very good game. Just look at Alpha Protocol.

Is there some kind of contest for the number of factual errors you can commit in a single article?

As already pointed out:

*Black Isle, not Black Rock*inXile is now also taking PayPal pledges directly through its website, not Obsidian*5% of all profits, not 5% of donations (in fact, it was explicitly stated the donations wouldn't be touched)

There are probably more but I am too disgusted by the general level of reporting in this article to continue.

According to a statement released by developer inXile, Wasteland mastermind Brian Fargo reached out to Obsidian Chief Creative Officer Chris Avellone, who says he "jumped at the chance" to work on what he considers a spiritual successor to the Fallout series

Is there some kind of contest for the number of factual errors you can commit in a single article?

As already pointed out:

*Black Isle, not Black Rock*inXile is now also taking PayPal pledges directly through its website, not Obsidian*5% of all profits, not 5% of donations (in fact, it was explicitly stated the donations wouldn't be touched)

There are probably more but I am too disgusted by the general level of reporting in this article to continue.

As the person above me just point out, "'jumped at the chance' to work on what he considers a spiritual successor to the Fallout series"

Spiritual successor??? Really??? Did the CCO of Obsidian really say this or is it another factual error on the part of the author?

edit:

Apparently it actually was Chris Avellone who said this. Reason enough to keep him far away from the project, IMO.

The author should also be knowledgeable enough to realize the mistake and clarify instead of publishing non-factual information.

I would withdraw my Kickstarter pledge if this gets closer to happening. I don't have many fond memories of KOTORII, Dungeon Siege 3 or Fallout NV (never played NWN2). I would rather Obsidian NOT be a part of the development process for what I hope will be a good game in Wasteland 2.

That is very sad, because beside the bugs Kotor2 and Fallout NV were a lot better than the first games, at least from an RPG perspective. Which is what they are about.

All of which had great writing. And that's what he is doing on Wasteland 2, is helping with writing in particular. People freaking out that KOTOR:2 was unfinished or that Fallout: New Vegas were buggy have nothing to worry about.